Angelika Last week, I received a noteworthy certificate from the fire department in San Francisco. You might be wondering if I've completely lost it and decided to train as a firefighter. Far from it! I completed an earthquake training course. As you know, San Francisco's only downside is that it is highly earthquake-prone. Since we've already experienced several small ones that scared me enough, our friend Anthony and I decided to do something about it and signed up for the aforementioned training. It lasted six weeks and was led by firefighters. We learned what to do when the ground starts shaking, first aid, San Francisco's disaster plan, how to search a building, assess how damaged it is, turn off the gas and water, etc. The training is primarily about helping yourself, but also your neighborhood, as it's certain that emergency services will be completely overwhelmed when a major earthquake hits. The training is aptly named "NERT" (Neighborhood Earthquake Response Team), meaning the firefighters provide training in various neighborhoods so that established teams can form to help in the event of an earthquake. You even get a small kit, namely a construction helmet (everyone, of course, hoped for a real American firefighter helmet) and an orange vest (Michael found my outfit highly amusing). Note from Michael: "NERD" means "idiot" in English, just thought I'd throw that in!

Last week, the so-called "Disaster Scenario" took place, essentially a practical exercise, and the execution was done in a Hollywood-like manner. For example, we had to search a room with injured people. To make everything as realistic as possible, the victims (volunteers) were professionally made up and equipped with fake blood. It looked so real that it made me feel quite uneasy. The victims moaned and screamed so realistically that a woman in my team kept murmuring, "I'm moving out of this city!" Then there was a dummy (posing as a dead body). It looked so realistic that several people (myself included) only realized after some time that it was a dummy. It really makes your knees start to shake, especially when the firefighters then go into detail about how it starts to smell after a relatively short time if you don't get the victims out early enough. A nightmare!

In any case, everyone who completed the training received a certificate and a handshake from the fire chief. Of course, it was also emphasized how important we all are, etc. By the way, I think that Americans have an inimitable talent for motivating and making everyone feel like the greatest. In any kind of class, it's important that the individual has fun, no matter how serious the topic may be, like in earthquake training. Sometimes you get the feeling that everything is a big show. On the other hand, such classes are really much more fun and are generally not as dry as in Germany.

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Stranger in one's own country
  	Dual Citizenship
  	Liability Craziness in the U.S.
  	"Perl Power" spotted at Stanford
  	Snowboarding in Tahoe
  	Working conditions in the USA
  	Buying a Car
  	German accent when speaking English
  	Motivation by Tony Robbins
  	Price Of Gas
  	AOL buys Netscape.